New Challenges for Documentary

The first edition of New challenges for documentary provided a major stimulus for teaching about documentary film and television and fresh encouragement for critical thinking about practice. This second edition brings together many new contributions both from academics and filmmakers, reflecting shifts both in documentary production itself, and in ways of discussing it.Once again, the emphasis has been on clear and provocative writing, sympathetic to the practical challenges of documentary film-making but making connections with a range of work in media and communications analysis.With its wide range of contributors and the international scope of its agenda, New challenges for documentary will be essential reading for general filmmakers and documentary students both of academic and practical inclinations. -- .

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Part One: Theories and forms: Documentary as genre 1. The voice of documentary - Bill Nichols 2. The image mirrored: Reflexivity and the documentary film - Jay Ruby 3. Television, documentary and the category of the aesthetic - John Corner 4. Mirrors without memories: Truth, history and the New Documentary - Linda Williams Part Two: The inside view: Producers and directors 5. The Canadian Film Board Unit B - D.B. Jones 6. An interview with Emile de Antonio - Gary Crowdus and Dan Georgakas 7. The war game: An interview with Peter Watkins - Alan Rosenthal 8. New agendas in black film-making: An interview with Marlon Riggs - Roy Grundmann 9. Jumping off the cliff: A conversation with Dennis O'Rourke - Tracey Spring 10. The politics of documentary: A symposium - Barbara Zheutlin 11. Staying alive - Alan Rosenthal Part Three: Issues of ethics and aesthetics 12. Ethics - Brian Winston 13. Ultimately we are all outsiders - Calvin Pryluck 14. The ethics of imagemaking - Jay Ruby 15. 'Word is Out' and 'Gay USA' - Lee Atwell 16. Building a mock-documentary schema - Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight 17. Sounds real: Music and documentary - John Corner 18. 'Bowling for Columbine': A review - Christopher Sharrett and William Luhr Part Four: Changing contexts in television 19. The McCarthy 'See It Now' broadcast - Fred W. Friendly 20. An independent with the networks - Robert L. Drew 21. New boy: An independent with Israel TV - Alan Rosenthal 22. Reflections on 'An American Family' - Craig Gilbert 23. 'American High': Documentary as episodic television - Ben Levin 24. Documentary and truth on television: The crisis of 1999 - John Ellis Part Five: Versions of history 25. History on the public screen I - Donald Watt 26. History on the public screen II - Jerry Kuehl 27. Historical analysis: Content, production and reception - John O'Connor 28. Narrative, invention and history - Jeffrey Youdelman 29. Against the ivory tower: An apologia for 'popular' historical documentaries - Dirk Eitzen 30. The event: Archive and imagination - Stella Bruzzi Part Six: Docudrama: Border disputes 31. Dramadoc / docudrama: The law and regulation - Derek Paget 32. US Docudrama and 'Movie-of-the-Week' - Steve Lipkin 33. Death of a princess: Interview with Anthony Thomas - Alan Rosenthal 34. Dramatized documentary - Leslie Woodhead 35. Where are we going, and how and why? - Ian McBride

About the Author :
Alan Rosenthal is Professor of Communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a documentary film-maker. John Corner is Professor in the School of Politics and Communication Studies at the University of Liverpool

Review :
"Was television "good" for documentary? Hard to believe this question was once posed, since television has so clearly become the dominant institution controlling what counts as "documentary". This shift is well reflected in Alan Rosenthal and John Corner's thoughtful and remarkably comprehensive anthology, which is a substantially revised version of Rosenthal's original 1987 collection. In come welcome discussions not only of "docudrama" and "dramadoc" - subtly different genres - and timely reflections on the spread of "docusoap" as the documentary impulse finds new ways of staying on primetime television." --Ian Christie, Professor of film and media history, Birkbeck, University of London "Was television 0;good1; for documentary? Hard to believe this question was once posed, since television has so clearly become the dominant institution controlling what counts as 0;documentary1;. This shift is well reflected in Alan Rosenthal and John Corner7;s thoughtful and remarkably comprehensive anthology, which is a substantially revised version of Rosenthal7;s original 1987 collection. In come welcome discussions not only of 0;docudrama1; and 0;dramadoc1; - subtly different genres - and timely reflections on the spread of 0;docusoap1; as the documentary impulse finds new ways of staying on primetime television." --Ian Christie, Professor of film and media history, Birkbeck, University of London "Was television "good" for documentary? Hard to believe this question was once posed, since television has so clearly become the dominant institution controlling what counts as "documentary." This shift is well reflected in Alan Rosenthal and John Corner's thoughtful and remarkably comprehensive anthology, which is a substantially revised version of Rosenthal's original 1987 collection. In come welcome discussions not only of "docudrama" and "dramadoc" - subtly different genres - and timely reflections on the spread of "docusoap" as the documentary impulse finds new ways of staying on primetime television." --Ian Christie, Professor of film and media history, Birkbeck, University of London